


Anonymous Howlers

by sunset_oasis



Series: Love of the Serpents [4]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Blaise's POV, EWE, F/M, First Person's POV, M/M, Theo is an inventor
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-09
Updated: 2017-04-09
Packaged: 2018-10-16 18:36:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,034
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10577136
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sunset_oasis/pseuds/sunset_oasis
Summary: When Draco and his girlfriend were getting harassed by the public, Theo came up with an ingenious idea for revenge.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter

Anonymous howlers were the newest fashion in the wizarding world these days – except for the small technical detail that it was not really anonymous.  Or the fact that unlike normal howlers, there was a way to mute them and convert the sounds into written words so you didn’t have to listen to someone shouting at you.

Short story: my boyfriend Theo was a genius at inventing things. (Unrelated but important fact – he was also brilliant and adorable and _mine_.)

Long story … well … a year ago, the Daily Prophet’s profits had boomed significantly when they’d opened a new column that let people submit short articles anonymously and they’d publish anything submitted for 1 galleon.  If you paid more, your articles got more chances to get published earlier.  As it turned out, quite a lot of people were eager to pay a galleon to get the chance to write anything they liked anonymously in a newspaper, and quite a lot of people were interested in buying a newspaper to read that, for both entertainment purposes and to see if their names appeared on it.

And when our best friend Draco got together with the Gryffindor Princess Granger three months ago, the Prophet’s profit boosted even more.  Apparently, a lot of people had a lot of opinions on this unconventional couple.  If I hadn’t seen how utterly in love he was, I’d suspect Draco was secretly an investor of the Prophet and he’s used dating Granger as only a means to boost the sales in his investment.  But no, he was just absolutely smitten with her.

The public was outraged, even if it wasn’t any of their business. Some sent in anonymous rants to Daily Prophets about how ‘a war heroine shouldn’t date Death-Eater scum’, some sent in about how Granger was ‘Death Eater’s whore’.  Some accused her only being after the Malfoy fortunes, and some said they were sure that he was only using her as a means to redeem his family name.

On one hand, it was amusing to see how people’s vocabulary turned out under the protection of anonymity; one the other hand … I wasn’t keen on letting anybody get away freely after insulting my best friend whilst hiding under anonymous protection.  While I was no big fan of Granger’s, who Draco dated was really not the public’s business.

An idea came up the other day while Theo and I were sunbathing in the garden of Nott Manor. We’d both been quite worried about our best friend getting more agitated by the anonymous accusations day by day, and while Granger seemed to put on the typical Gryffindor bravado mask, she seemed to be quite shaken by some, too.

“About that anonymous thing, I’ve been thinking,” I murmured into Theo’s hair as he straddled me, “the best way is to simply offer the public a more … _attractive_ way to send anonymous hate – like, maybe anonymous howlers or something. I’m sure with your talent at inventing stuff it’d be easy.”

He put a hand onto my forehead and squinted at me, “Are you sure your brain’s alright, love?”

“I haven’t finished,” I rolled my eyes, “the point is, you install a backdoor that would actually let you find out who the sender of an anonymous howler was … of course, the public doesn’t need to know about that.  Also, it might be nice if you also built in a way to mute it and convert the shouts into writings … again, the public doesn’t need to know.”

“So you’re saying … I invent something like this, gets it onto the market, wait and see who send howlers to Draco and his darling girlfriend, used the backdoor to find out the sender …”

“And do something vicious to them, yeah,” I smirked.

“Wow, you’re terrifyingly cunning,” he laughed.

“And yet, I can’t really accomplish this without your talents,” I chuckled, playing with his hair.

“Flattery …,” Theo drawled in amusement, “will get you everywhere, love.”

“I’m not really interested in going everywhere, just your bed,” I whispered into his ear.

“Happy to oblige,” he pressed a kiss onto my lips.

 

* * *

 

It hadn’t taken him long to get all the technical details right, and through a few connections and contacts we were able to put the product onto the market, without letting others knew he was the inventor.  My prediction about the appeal of this new product was right, and people did seem attracted to the idea about directly sending anonymous hate using howlers.

The galleons rolled in and the howlers flew everywhere, and Granger and Draco had gotten the quite a pile of them … then Theo went to Malfoy Manor to demonstrate that neat spell he created that could convert the shouting to writings so they didn’t have to listen to all of them.  Granger was impressed but annoyed that he wouldn’t tell her the technical details of how it worked.  (Which was kind of ironic in a way, considering sometimes _I_ had to threaten Theo to shut up about all the technical details I wasn’t interested in knowing while we fucked …)

“Here, hand over the converted-to-writing howlers,” Theo held out his hand.

“I don’t mind reading them – I’m a Gryffindor, I won’t let those people’s words get me down,” she huffed, crossing her arm. “I just want to read what those people say.”

“We’ll filter them for you and pass on anything interesting ones,” I offered.

“I’m not afraid of their words,” she insisted.

“No, they’re right – you shouldn’t have to read those anonymous hate,” Draco interrupted. “How about—”

Seeing Draco’s expression, I realized while he wanted to protect Granger from the howlers, he himself wanted to read it, despite the hate that could be directed towards him.  Knowing Granger, she definitely would not take this suggestion well … I interrupted quickly, “how about you two just leave it to us?”

“I’m not afraid of what they got to say,” Granger insisted again, getting annoyed.

“No, you’re not,” Theo agreed. “But you don’t deserve the stupid opinions of people who hiding behind anonymous masks sending off hate.  It’s not a question about your bravery, it’s that _nobody deserves this kind of thing._ ”

“We’ll pass you on if there’s anything that’s not malicious here, or if it’s particular interesting,” I said smoothly, picking all the converted-to-writing howlers up.

 

* * *

 

The letters, as it turned out, came from all sorts of people.  From pureblood housewives who had probably never met Granger before, to some of Granger’s ex-Gryffindor housemates.  We finally put together a list of people who had sent anonymous howlers to them.

“Do we deal with them ourselves or do we tell Draco?” Theo asked as we both studied the list.

“I think he would want to know, as for Granger …” I paused.

“You fear she won’t like this too-Slytherin approach?” He caught onto my worries quickly.

“Yeah,” I nodded, “let’s just tell Draco.”

 

* * *

 

Draco was impressed with us for putting together the list, and eager for arranging some revenge after we explained everything to him.  But he also expressed that he wanted to tell Granger the whole thing, “it’s her revenge, too.”

“I have a feeling, that she won’t approve of our methods much,” I said cautiously.

“Hermione’s more Slytherin than you two believed,” Draco insisted.

Theo and I shared a skeptical glance, but didn’t argue with Draco.  However, we soon found out that Granger was less than impressed after getting to know everything.  In fact, she was livid.

“If we were the only people who would get anonymous howlers, I would have no problem with this,” she snapped, “but the truth is, we couldn’t possibly be the only ones getting anonymous hate.  While you can do this for us, a lot of other people out there started getting anonymous howlers just because you two invented this stupid thing!”

For a moment, nobody said anything and the tension in the room was running high. Then, Theo said softly, “technically, _we two_ didn’t invent this.   _I_ did. My fault – sorry.  I never thought of that—”

“ _Shut up_ ,” I hissed at him, “you may be the one involved with all the technical details, but it was _my_ idea.”

Granger continued to fume on as she lectured us, “Did you two stop to think about this might have an impact on other people?”

I stole a glance at Draco, who was being very quiet and seemed determined to stay that way.  Theo was staring at some spot on the wall, and Granger was glaring at us.  Then she snatched the list away, “I’ll keep this and deal with these people.  And you two should _fix_ this mess you’ve created. Now, escort yourselves out.” She pointed to the doors.

Draco was still being very determinedly quiet, not wanting to get into this argument at all.  Theo hesitated a moment before moving towards the door.  I followed him.  As soon as we stepped out of the door, I muttered to Theo, “She could’ve at least say thanks for the list.”

“I heard that, Zabini!” Granger’s voice came the room we just exited.

I kicked the door close and grabbed Theo’s arm and apparated us back to Nott Manor.

 

* * *

 

When we landed in the living room of Nott Manor, neither of us said anything for a whole minute.  Then, I closed my eyes and my lips twitched into a half-smirk, “If you want to blame me for this whole idea too, now’s the time to do it.”

I felt he placed a hand on my back, “I’m not blaming you for anything – I happily went along with the idea.  Hell, even Draco had no objections to it I bet – he’s just too whipped to argue with Granger for us.”

“Uh-huh.”

“Blaise, look at me,” he said quietly.  I slowly opened my eyes to meet his, and he repeated, “Whatever her views are, _I_ ’m not going to blame you.  And we can fix this together, or we can just ignore her. Whatever you like.”

I thought for a moment, then said softly, “Well, we’re going to fix it.  Because it’s _profitable_.”

He frowned for a moment, before understanding dawned in his eyes, “Do you mean, offering services that identify who the senders of the anonymous howlers are to the public?”

I smirked, “What else?  People would realize that this thing was actually not anonymous and stopped using this method to send hate – problem solved, Granger mollified.  We get money from all the people who come to us for the service. Since we put the original product onto the market through many layers of connections and contacts, the public didn’t know it was us who invented this.  Then use some of the money earned to try to bribe the Prophet into cancelling the ridiculous anonymous article section, too.  If the person in position isn’t bribable, I could still ask Mom to do some assassination.”

A slow smile spread across his face, “Yeah … that might work.”

 

* * *

 

Thankfully, it did.  We first made some money from the service we provided, and the public stopped trusting the anonymous howlers and gradually stopped using them.  Some galleons and threats forced the Prophet to agree to our terms and closed off the particular column section. And Draco and Granger arranged several revenge for the list of people who’d sent howlers to them.  

She was grudgingly impressed yet annoyed we turned the ‘solving problem’ plan into a self-profitable one.  But before I could retort with anything, Theo spoke first, “we fixed the mess, scared people into thinking twice about sending anonymous hate, and you got your revenge.  Is it so wrong that we earned some money in the process?  I’m not going to apologize for our self-benefiting Slytherin tendencies – just like we never asked you to apologize for being a big-hearted Gryffindor who couldn’t stand all the others suffering for our invention and forcing us to solve this without a single thank for the list.”

Granger stared at Theo, while Draco continued to remain quiet.  I glanced around the room and drawled, “Well, we should probably say thank you too – because we did benefit from all of the troubles you two had.  So we’ll call it even.  Theo – let’s go home.”

And so we went home.

**Author's Note:**

> find me on tumblr: ff-sunset-oasis.tumblr.com


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